Turning tables
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: James and M's relationship barely stretches past friendly banter and trying their level best to annoy the life out of each other. But when M is critically injured in an attempt to assassinate her by a ghost from her past, things change. She lets slip something that she never wanted anyone to know whilst she is half-conscious. Is it true or was she just delusional? 00M
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, I'm writing this whilst listening to 'We Both Reached For The Gun' out of Chicago, so if you want to know where the hell this came from; there you go.**

* * *

Tanner's shaking hand pried the headset from M's own limp one, the older woman's body shaking with every breath she drew and deep crimson blood pooling around her, staining her white dress shirt, saturating her iron-grey hair and morbidly defining her skeletal frame, making her look eerily dead . No. No. No. How the hell was this even possible? Images of what had just happened kept flashing in his mind, making his eyes burn with tears. Moments ago, M had been stood behind her desk, up to her usual routine of barking orders at 007, which the agent was probably going to make a point of expressly ignoring. Now...

"_Which one of you is M?" The man was a typical picture of an terrorist assassin. Black-masked face. Thick Arab accent. Sawn-off shotgun clamped in his hands and angling steadily from M to Moneypenny, poised to shoot at a moment's notice. "Tell me or I shoot both of you!" _

_It had been Tanner's fault. The second the words; "Ma'am, get down!" had left his lips, he had regretted it. The thoughts rushing around in the cavern of his mind were more physical pain than mere emotions as he stood, mouth agape, watching in horror at the scene playing out in front of him. M had by this point whipped her custom, discreet Q-Branch pistol from the waistband of her skirt. As the trigger finger of the assassin tightened, M's did as well. Tanner could see the quiet contempt on her face, all tension dispersed from her limbs so as not to show weakness to her opponent, as the assailant collapsed dead to the floor with a bullet buried deep in his skull. Then almost in slow motion he gritted his teeth as she fell moments later, almost in slow motion, a growing stain of scarlet spreading rapidly over the vague area of her shoulder. _

"_Tanner-" Her stilted word spoke a thousand to her chief of staff. He did this to her. She was going to die because of him. No she wasn't. Bill, stop being so utterly stupid. She's survived worse. She'll be fine. _

_No, she won't bloody well be fine. He was knelt beside her, his breath leaving him in sharp, gasping rushes, his hands holding up her upper half. And that was when he noticed a flash of bloodstained, unbroken skin underneath – no, THROUGH – her bullet wound. Ignoring her pained groans of protest, he hastily tugged off her black tailored jacket, exposing her even more bloodied shirt. The gauzy silk was torn far more than the robust nylon of her blazer, exposing her wound in all its glory; he could see the strikingly white yet sickening edge of her collarbone and open flesh steadily gushing blood. And what he could see through her injury...it was the palm of his own hand. No, it couldn't have been. But the bullet dark with congealed blood lying on the floor next to her didn't lie. Oh, god, this was bad. He noticed the headset still clamped in her hand. This shouldn't be his priority, but..._

"Bond! Bond!"  
"Tanner, calm it! What the bloody hell just happened?" Both men were breathing heavily, even the one eleven thousand miles away in New Zealand. Tanner could tell that Bond had either been running or had sex recently or was having some kind of seizure.  
"Look, there was an...look, I have no idea what you may call it, but someone got in here somehow and...and...M's been shot."

* * *

James knew at the back of his mind that Q was going to absolutely massacre him for not giving the equipment a second thought, but he had to get the hell out of there and fast. The mission was going to be completely forgotten, but he didn't give a rat's ass at this stage. M wasn't one of those girls that he would jump into bed with, or indeed Anahira Hart - the dark-haired native girl with quite frankly the biggest tits he'd ever seen that was lying asleep beside him, her tan legs tangled around the damp red sheets - but he still would have killed himself if she'd died. What of she already had? No, she can't have. But what if she had? What if the reason Tanner had called him to come back was for her funeral?

* * *

The tears in James's eyes were obvious as he picked up a copy of 'The Times' in Arrivals at Gatwick, the headline declaring; 'MI6 HEAD IN CRITICAL CONDITION FOLLOWING ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT' He could scarcely bear to read any more of the cover feature, but his eyes were drawn to the pixellated image of a woman that was all to clearly M being stretchered out of the MI6 HQ, covered in blood with a shaken Tanner by her side as always. His pale blue eyes flicked of their own accord to the fine print beneath the picture.  
_'MI6 head, officially titled "M" remains in a critical medically-induced coma after revenge seeker Hassam Bin Hassam slipped through security and shot her in the shoulder. Bin Hassam was killed in the attack, and "M" is now in a coma after twelve-hour surgery at the London Royal Hospital to reconstruct the muscle structure of her upper arm, MORE ON PAGES 4, 5, 6 & 7'_

He smiled a little. That bloody woman was near indestructible - well, not so much that as impossible to kill - and he was grateful beyond belief at her still clinging to life. But just barely. On the phone earlier, Tanner had said that she was 'Barely clinging on by her fingernails'. That wasn't good. Ramming the paper into his bag, he strode out of the door, hailing a taxi as he went.  
"Royal London Hospital, please."  
No time to go and get rid of his things. He had to get to see M and fast.


	2. Chapter 2

Nine days. Nine bloody _days _M had been in a coma for and it was just utterly killing James from the inside. He couldn't yet pluck up the courage to hold her hand, but as he sat by her side in her private room, his hand unconsciously ran up the length of her cheek.

She looked a complete state. That was pretty much all that could be said on that front. Her hair was all over the place and unwashed, her face pallid and gorgeous ice-blue eyes lightly closed, her dark lashes fanned out over the creases of her bottom eyelids. Her lips were unreadable, closed and in a straight line, expressionless. Her cheekbones looked oddly hollow, and after more than a week of staring at it, James knew every crease and line of her face by heart.

All the tubes and wires connected to her, running in and out of her arms and nose, made for quite a lot of unnecessarily caused fear that her condition was worse than it was in truth. There was needles for an IV drip and blood transfusion stuck in the veins in one wrist, an oxygen mask over her mouth, feeding tubes up her nose and a drain sticking from the heavy bandages over her right shoulder. The bullet had gone into the hollow between her collarbone and shoulder, straight down, taking an enormous chunk out of the bone of her shoulder blade and then had come out the other side, effectively leaving her with a massive hole in her arm, making for the seventeen hours of re-constructive surgery she had undergone over the course of a week. And just to add to the morbidness, she was hooked up to a heart rate monitor.

The ever-constant bleep was beginning to annoy James a little, as well as scaring the life out of him. It was growing slower. He could hear the mechanical, flat tones growing further and further apart.

Beep...Beep... .Beep... ..Beep... ...Beep... ...Beep... ... ...

* * *

Everything hurt. M thanked god that she hadn't been in surgery recently, because frankly it hurt like hell. She could feel every incision that they had made in her as it had happened, every drop of her blood shed, every bone snapped and the pain had been completely overwhelming. Had she been able to, she would have cried out when she was in the theatre, let them know that she could still feel everything they were doing to her thankyouverymuch and so much as a local anaesthetic would be bloody well appreciated. She could hear everything going on around her as well, and she had to admit that hearing 'We're losing her!' whilst she had been on the surgeon's table had been somewhat disturbing. She had very nearly died on numerous occasions, and she didn't need reminding of those few terrifying times or of now. It had hurt her on the inside hearing everything said around her too. When she had caught Tanner telling James that she was clinging to life by her fingernails, well that had nearly destroyed her.

It was almost utter bliss now, James stroking her cheek. But when he stopped and stood up to leave, she somehow managed t force a few words to leave her lips. She didn't want to be alone any longer; it was tearing her apart.  
"James...stay with me...I love you..."

* * *

**Sorry that was so short, I just needed to get it out there. *Ba da daaaa!* So, M's just come round and made it known by telling James that she loves him! Whatever next, I wonder...**


	3. Chapter 3

**This may be a little OOC, but face it, M's almost died, been in a coma for nine days, been under a general anaesthetic about three hours prior to this scene and is pretty much in constant pain all the time, so I think she's allowed to be a little pathetic for a while. As for James...No explanation, but I just find it cute when he goes all caring for M.**

* * *

"How do you feel?"  
"Sore," M groaned softly, her eyes barely open and the sheets hitched up to her chin, covering her neck and everything below. Her face was utterly colourless and there was a lot more blood and bandages around her wounded shoulder than there had been the previous day. James pulled up his usual hard plastic seat by her side as she breathed out a heavy sigh. James noticed that she was lying uncomfortably on her side facing him, her injured left shoulder off of the bed. "I had another op at about five in the morning today; I think it might have been bone reconstruction, but I'm not too sure. They had to put some bloody massive titanium plate into my shoulder blade and I know it's supposed to help rather than hinder in the long term, but I think they must have put screws into the bone or something like that because I felt like my shoulder had been smashed when I came to. It's just...Everything always bloody hurts absolutely all the time and it's just absolute hell..."

Never in his life had James seen M looking so frightened, in pain, vulnerable, pathetic even. He was still thinking about what she had said to him two days previously. He had no idea whether she had just been drugged up or if she had actually meant it, but 'I love you' were three words he never thought he would hear leave that woman's lips. Well, not directed at him, anyway.

She drew breath to continue speaking, but broke into a stilted coughing fit before she could. James stood up, leaning over her and rubbing the small of her back firmly. When she had, put it this way, remembered how to breathe, he lay her down again after helping her to have a few sips from the glass of water on the table by her bedside and dabbing at her damp eyes with a tissue.  
"Thank you," she sighed again, brushing her hair from her forehead with her good hand and turning over so that she was face-down on her pillow. "James, how the hell did this even happen?" Her voice was muffled, but James made out her words easily enough.  
"Q's working on it. You killed the guy who did this a couple of seconds before his bullet hit you, but I think some of our security staff is going to be looking for a new job." The crinkles by her eyes that he could see from her current angle told him that she was smiling. But he needed to get something off of his chest. "M, the day that you came round from the coma...I don't know if you'll remember this, but you told me that you loved me. Does that make any sense to you?" The soft rise and fall of her body told him that she was asleep. He quite frankly couldn't blame her, but it was annoying him now. Had she said it without meaning to or had it been a perfect truth?

* * *

M woke up much later on. Crying. God, everything hurt again and it was making her practically scream out with agony. In the old days, if someone wound up with an injury that bad, then they just died. Straightforward and painless – well, relatively so. She would sooner be dead than have to be put through this. As she had said on so many occasions; Christ, she missed the Cold War. Her shoulder always got worse every time she moved, and sleeping was the worst – she tended to toss and turn a lot so this was a fairly major hindrance – but it wasn't just that. She had heard what James had asked her just as she had been dropping off to sleep, and she had wanted so badly to respond. Yes, yes, yes she did mean it. She never would have though it until now, but when the calloused touch of his hand against her lined cheek had been the only release from her world of pain and darkness she knew that though she had taken it for simply an annoying professional relationship over the years, through the Casino Royale and Quantum cases, from Montenegro to the backstreets of London, through thick and thin, it had been...Love. Was it mutual? That was all she wanted to know.

God, it all hurt too much. Seventy-two external stitches and that was just what you could see. The back of her shoulder was probably more metal than bone by now and if she was going to be told that she needed more added on to the twenty-one hours of surgery she had undergone so far then she was literally going to kill herself.  
She turned her tear-stained face to the window, muttering the lyrics to a song under her breath.  
_"You're no good for me, you're no good for me, you're no good for me, but baby I want you, I want you..."_

* * *

M was sat up the next morning, rather groggy from being drugged up on an absolute hell of a lot of painkillers, tracing the lines on her limp left hand with her fingertip, her head resting on the gauzy bandages covering her shoulder. Various wodges of cotton wool to tampon seriously bleeding areas and dressings over fresh surgical inscisions were patchworked all over her upper back and the kind of halfway point between cleavage and neck, and there were fresh bursts of agony from everything every so often, combined with the constant dull ache in her head, probably from taking too many meds. She was practically dying of boredom and she really had to tell James that she _had _meant what she had said with every drop of blood still in her veins and every inch of her being.  
"James...I need you..."


	4. Chapter 4

**Can I say now that this fic is dedicated to my friend Lotte. Okay, time for a reappearance of yet another OC - Gill. Yes, RebaForever15, you. Don't get to overexcited this time, though Bond doesn't get moody with you now and you kind of have to help M when she's having a little cry. Enjoy!**

* * *

Gill Anderson had been working at the Royal London Hospital for the best part of her thirty-one year life. She had watched families weep and be wrenched apart emotionally as a brain-dead great grandmother went flat line following an absolute hell of a lot of surgery and a seven month coma. She had told people that they had been diagnosed with cancer. Been forced to talk young mothers-to-be into abortion. She had even had to break the news to a guy of barely twenty one that his fiancée had died in childbirth. It was a tough job; for once the drama shows got it absolutely bang on and at times she hated it. It was he job to be caring but there was no room for true emotion or pity, personal attachment or strong feelings in a lot of cases, but this was one that really broke the rules.

She gently pushed open the door to the room of a woman named Evelyn Cameron, who had been admitted after being shot about a fortnight ago. Gill's messy blonde hair cascaded into her eyes as she turned her head, but she brushed it off, pacing slowly in her black heels to the woman, Evelyn's, bed by the window. A heart-wrenching stab of pity sunk into Gill like a knife as she saw Evelyn, lying in her usual position on her side, her injured shoulder raised and her face uneasy. She knew fine well that the maturer woman had nearly died and probably would have if she hadn't had her degree of sheer luck, and that the pain she had been in of late was absolutely horrendous; the amount of surgery she had had to have certainly didn't help matters at all. It really hurt Gill sometimes, knowing that what she was pretty much paid to tell people was what the never wanted to hear, and her sympathy for Evelyn combined with the fact that when Evelyn wasn't drugged up or crying out in pain they got on fairly well, made her rather curl up somewhere and die than say what she was about to. But that wasn't an option.

"Evelyn?" The older woman turned her head. Gill sighed, knowing that she was going to get no more of a courteous response than this. "Look, I'm really sorry to say this but you're going to have to undergo another operation later. An artery was burst when you were first wounded, and no one noticed until lately. By this point a blood clot had started to form and we're going to have to operate today to get rid of it an close off the burst vein or you could well end up losing your arm. I'm really sorry."

She watched tears form in Evelyn's eyes, her expression crumpling. She nodded limply, wincing. Gill sighed again in sympathy, barely grasping how much all this must bloody hurt for the poor woman. Evelyn had needed a local anaesthetic in her shoulder just because the pain was so bad that she couldn't sleep and that all but the strongest painkillers were by now ineffective.

"If it helps, we can contact your son James for you; you know, the one who's always here with you. It may make it a little easier if you go under and come round with him by your side."

"He isn't my son, but please do."

* * *

"James, I'm absolutely bloody terrified," M was sitting up a little, sobbing. "I always worry about what could go wrong and how much it's going to hurt when I wake up and..."

"M," James sighed, running his hand through her gorgeous silver hair. "M, M, M, don't get your knickers in a twist, it'll be fine. I promise. I mean, you're so tough sometimes your practically bulletproof-" He stopped, knowing what he had just said and what he had unintentionally done with his words.

"A Freudian slip if I ever saw one. James, I need to say something. I love you. I really do. I wasn't just hallucinating when I said it. I really do need you..."

James was crying with her now. He may have felt a little inclined to say this, but his feelings flooded on top of him in a hard rush. He really did feel the same way. Christ. "M, I love you too." He cupped her head in his hands and planted a firm yet delicate kiss on her thin lips. A look of content washed over her face as he pulled away from her. He knew that she would still be rather fragile, but she didn't seem to care. "You'll be okay."

* * *

James watched with baited breath from behind the glass wall as a mask was placed over M's face to put her to sleep. He noticed a blonde nurse in he early thirties by his side and said to her quietly; "How long is she likely to be in the theatre for?"

"Depends," the nurse's lips thinned. "I take it you two are close?"

"She's my boss but she kind of just declared undying love to me." A slight smile must have crossed his lips as the nurse rolled her eyes.

"I take it that women gushing over you is something you're no stranger to?"

"You could say that," James half-laughed.

"I guess that she's lucky to have someone like you to take care of her when she gets out of here then."

James opened his mouth to respond but without explanation, all reason was thrown to the wind. As soon as she came to, he would be waiting for her with flowers and her hand clasped in his, he decided on the spot. And he knew where she was going once she was released, and it certainly wasn't back to her flat on her own.


	5. Chapter 5

**Okay, more OCs and this time it's the one based on me (and now making her appearance, her never-before-seen older sister); Vivian.**

* * *

James walked into M's room around three hours after her most recent op to find two girls of about sixteen and twelve by her side, the pair of them wearing the black and purple uniform of a fee-paying girls' school in the area, the older with gold prefect's bands around the sleeves of her blazer. She was currently occupying James's usual seat by M's side, talking to her nineteen to the dozen, M still a little drugged up and not speaking an awful lot, though nodding every so often. The older girl looked a little like M James had to admit, just an awful lot younger, her blonde hair cut into a messy bob, a Graphic Design folder tangled around the strap of her SuperDry bag and as she turned, James noticed the silver 'Head Girl' badge on her lapel. The younger of the pair was leaning against the older's chair, her hair braided and her nose in a script. On closer inspection, James noticed that the page she was looking at was contents, and the wodge of papaer supposedly contained the lyrics to _All That Jazz, Cell Block Tango, I Can't Do It Alone, My Own Best Friend, I Know A Girl, Class _and _Nowadays _from _Chicago!,_ along with most of the lines of the character that sings them, Velma Kelly. He found himself surprised to actually know this, being no great lover of Broadway, but his surprise was soon overrun by M softly sighing his name, opening her one good arm from her sitting position. As he dumped the flowers he had had in his hand on her bedside table and let her pull him into a one-armed hug, him gently kissing her cheek, the older of the two girls sitting around wolf-whistled. "Ooh, Gran, how much are you paying him?"

"_Harriet!" _James pulled away from M as she barked surprisingly harshly. On reeling back, she grimaced, however, and the girl, who James now guessed was named Harriet, judging by M's slight outburst, looked down guiltily.

"You okay?" James asked M somewhat tentatively, stroking her hair. She nodded, chewing her lip, budging herself backwards a little and sighing.

"Mm," M groaned slightly. "Still a bit tender so I can't move much too suddenly." Harriet still wore a pained half-smile on her face as she stood up.

"Sorry. Do you want a seat?" She turned to James, still looking a bit annoyed with herself. "I'm Hattie by the way. And that's Vivian, but there's absolutely no point talking to her because all you'll get is no response or a load of guff about musicals."

"Shut up!" Vivian attempted to smash Hattie around the head with he script, but the older girl caught hold of it. "I do not! I just can't get a word in edgeways with you gassing non-stop."

M smiled slightly, but a raise of her eyebrows shut both girls up. "Yes, before you ask this pair are my granddaughters. They're both my daughter Summer's; she's been an agent for seven years bow but the dirty thing managed to get knocked up with this one-" M cocked her head in Hattie's direction, who smiled innocently. "When she was seventeen, can you believe it? Summer's been in Shanghai trying to sort out what looked like a reboot of the Casino Royale case, but it was a dead end. The weather over there's been utterly frightful though, and she's been stuck over there this fortnight past." M looked from James to the flowers by her side, and after a temporary memory lapse James handed them to her. "Thank you," she kissed him lightly on the cheek, ignoring Hattie pulling a face and pointing a finger down her throat.

"These kind of put plan A down the toilet. The only florist within three kilometres of here was so bloody packed that I couldn't even get through the door. My idea had been for you to come round with me next to you, so that's my excuse as to why that didn't happen."

M rolled her eyes, beaming. "You loveable little sod." Not a moment after she had finished speaking, a speed metal guitar solo ringtone belted from Hattie's phone, making M visibly jump, crying out a little in the process.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry!" Hattie jumped up, settling M down again until she untensed, sighing, her free hand resting on her heavily bandaged shoulder.

"Hattie, I'm fine, really. What was that?"

"Mum," Hattie bent and showed the text to Vivian. "She's in Departures but there's a three-hour delay and her EMC isn't until half ten tomorrow morning. She was asking how you were doing."

"Tell he I'm fine, if a little sore."

Hattie's thumbs flew over her keyboard, Vivian looking up at James. "So, how long have you two been an item?"

"Viv! Really!"

"No, it's fine," James rolled his eyes a little at M. "I'm not too sure that we really are, but I have to say that she's probably the sexiest granny I've ever seen."

"James!"

"M," Vivian and Hattie had left a few minutes ago when James looked into M's eyes and spoke. She albeit looked rather tired and he was hoping that she wouldn't fall asleep on him again. "Look, once you're out of here, I was wondering something. You live on your own and...well, while you're recovering..." He was getting a little tongue-tied, staring at M's face, her half-closed eyes fighting the urge to fall asleep. "I was wondering if you'd like to stay at my flat for a bit?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry about this. I suppose that I could gass for an huour about ****_Chicago! _**

"James, how is she?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but she's on the mend for definite. Tanner, she told me to ask you why the hell you've not bothered to come and see her, no offense meant." James was holding his phone to his ear with his shoulder, just outside of M's room. The expression in her eyes he could see through the glass wall was willing him to come through and speak to her, but he had gotten his ass handed to him last time he had tried to phone whilst in with her, so he wasn't willing to take his chances a second time.

"I'm holding the fort back here whilst M's recovering so I haven't really got the chance. I've tried a couple of times, got to the main doors and chickened out. I just feel like it's my fault; the only reason she got shot was because I accidentally called her ma'am. I'm going to send flowers around as soon as I can."

"It was her or Moneypenny, Tanner, and that woman has a stupidly low pain threshold, so I wouldn't have banked on her surviving."

"Thank you for that," Tanner said drily, James snorting a little at him. "And there might be a mission waiting for you, just to give you a heads up."

* * *

"You certainly took your time," M was smiling, but her tone was flat and she was rolling her eyes a little. Her arm was now in a sling, and she looked a bit less pallid and miserable than she had for the past few weeks.

"Not my fault that Tanner decided to call me just as I stepped in the door. You definitely look better, how are you?"

"Yeah, 'blame Tanner' has been my strategy for years actually. My arm still bloody hurts but I don't feel as much like shit as I have for the past few weeks now that I think I've gotten all the anaesthetic out of my system. I actually ate something and keep it down this morning for the first time in about a week and I managed to walk to the loo and back earlier, so I'm calling that a definite improvement. Oh, and I'm supposed to be getting out the day after tomorrow." James couldn't help but grin a little stupidly when she said this. It had been getting him down, going in every second he had the opportunity to see her and her so miserable. She turned her head, and James caught a glint of silver.

"New earrings?"

M beamed, toying with her teardrop diamond studs. "Hattie gave me them. She and Viv have been in a couple more times, but I haven't heard a thing from Vivian apart from the usual 'how are you' and a few verses of _My Own Best Friend_. She's a part of some drama academy and they're doing a charity performance of _Chicago!_ and she was cast as Velma. She loves it, really but she's killing herself with it. Still, it was probably worse before the auditions – she spent about three hours watching the movie over and over again and learning _Mr Cellophane _only to get there and be told that they wanted a boy as Amos. She was in pieces. At least there's no risk of her and Hattie getting into 'Six because neither of them have even a remote interest in it. Vivian wants to be an actress and Hattie an architect."

"I'll pretend I understood that."

* * *

M smiled as her hand slipped into James's. The pair were in James's personal Aston Martin; the only one that he hadn't managed to single-handedly destroy, on the way to his apartment. In case that wasn't clear, M had in fact agreed stay with him for a while. The pair were listening to the radio, and when a particular song came on, James started jiggling about, singing and being stupid.

"_Let's get married  
I love you and I want to stay with you  
Let's get married  
Have kids and grow old and grey with you  
Let's get married  
Hold hands, walk in the park  
You can get a cat as long as it barks..."_

On hearing this, M pulled her hand into her lap and stared downwards. James put a free arm around her, feeling her skin against his; she was wearing a sleeveless top with one of her usual blazers – well, half of one. She could only really get one arm into it.

"What's up?"

"It's just...Well, are you sure that you aren't throwing yourself into this? I already am pretty old and you can never get that from me. I'm passed the stage where I can give you children and anything else like that. You can never get from me what you could so easily have had from Vesper or anyone else."

"M, what I had with Vesper was a lot of sex and any resulting children would have been some freak accident. I don't care about that. I don't give a damn about age. I want you for you, M."

"I'm your's."


	7. Chapter 7

James didn't look awfully pleased as he trudged in from work. That was the first thing M noticed about him as she stood up to meet him, again wearing something similar to her tank top/half a jacket combination from the previous day. Her first impulse was to ask him what the issue was, but the impatient look in his eye told her silently to sit down again.

Her hand ran unconsciously up a black velvety cushion. James's décor wasn't overly flamboyant; on the contrary, fairly minimalistic and far darker than her and the white leather and contemporary modern art of her own sitting room were used to, though despite this, she liked it. However, staying in the apartment of a man who, despite having a reputation for shagging anything with boobs and half a brain cell, lived alone and had done so for the past fifteen years had its downsides. They had been back to her central London penthouse for clothes and a few toiletries, but she hadn't had the foresight to pick up a book or something, so after the novelty of flicking through gun magazines and having a bit of a nose around the rest of James's flat (for someone like him who was constantly having sex with god knows who without so much as a second thought, M had been rather surprised to find condoms in his bathroom dresser) she had been bored completely out of her wits all day.

She slumped down, wincing as her shoulder hit off of the sofa. James parked himself next to her, still stony-faced. "What's up with you?"

"Tanner called me in earlier and said that there was some bloody mission that only I can go on in Japan or somewhere stupid like that," James pulled her into him, and she gave him a sympathetic grimace. "And it's not something where you can just go 'no thanks' and walk out. It's some 'international security threat' and I have to be on it by tomorrow of all times."

"What? Surely to god he can't send agents out without my permission. I mean, you're barely back from New Zealand!" M bolted up, staring at him. "It can't be that bad, can it?"

"You heard. Bloody international security breach. I reckon it's about time that Japan got their own secret service because this has absolutely nothing to do with us. And the reason I don't want to do it isn't just because I can't be arsed after the last one. The entire reason you're here at all is because I wanted to be there for you until you can go back and give the orders instead of Tanner, because face it, briefings are pretty rubbish without all that banter that normally happens when you try and put you and I in a room for more than five minutes. Now that I think about it, I kind of miss that."

"God, you are insufferably cute sometimes," M pressed her face against his chest, James stroking her hair like a cat. "I'll be fine."

"You always say that," James rolled his eyes. "_That_ is not fine, M." He gestured to her wounded shoulder.

"What I mean is I'll live. Just go and stay alive. Early night?"

"You honestly think that's a good idea?"

M was up already. "No. I just want you to lie with me."

* * *

M was lying on her right side, James slowly kissing up her back then leaning his head on her neck. She sighed at the feel of his breath against her skin. But the word to lave his lips made her bolt upright, nearly slapping him in the face.

"Vesper..."

* * *

**I know that was short. I just wanted a scenario in which James accidentally calls M Vesper. How will she react, I wonder?**


	8. Chapter 8

M stood up, pulling a shirt over herself, not really caring whether it was hers or his. James looked up sleepily to find her standing, face like thunder and fire in her eyes. "M, what's the problem?" His voice was a drowsy slur, but as she spoke, she spat out every word and her voice was as sharp as ever and dripping with sheer fury.

"Tell me about Vesper, James." Each word sounded like an accusation fired at him. "Do I look like her, smell like her or bear any kind of resemblance to her whatsoever? Or do you just do to me what you did to her?"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Am I just some kind of replacement for your dead lover?" she spat as he pushed James against a wall, her good arm pressing against his neck. It took no small amount of effort to not see her as a threat and immediately incapacitate her. He quickly calmed his senses and focused on the woman currently glaring daggers at him. He had never seen M this angry; normally she was aloof and snarky when she was annoyed with him. This M was far past that point.

"You look, smell and feel nothing like her," James confessed slowly, dispersing tension from his limbs. "What's this about?" he said when he saw M look almost as confused as he was and release the pressure on his neck.

"You just called me Vesper for god's sake!" she shifted her gaze from Bond to some point to the far left, her jaw still tense but her eyes looking oddly soft.

This was by far the strangest conversation Bond had had in months…and a few weeks ago he had hung a man upside down to demand he inform him of the location of a collectible glass monkey.

"I honestly have no kind of recollection of doing so," he noted M's slight eye-roll, clearly not believing him. "I don't know why I would ever-," he paused and attempted to school his features into something that wasn't their current dismay "you're nothing like her. Nothing like anyone I've ever-" he stopped speaking, hoping that he was conveying the emotions that M needed to see. He looked into her face and tried to convey his desperation. M stared at him, her jaw slack and eyes wider than he'd ever seen them.

M pushed against him then. Before kissing him, she said quietly; "If you ever call me by her name again, I will not hesitate to end you."


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry for neglecting this so much. I've been so caught up in This Means War and Innocent Until Proven Guuilty (my first multi-chapter crossover and first Casualty fic) Now I think it's high time we found out why this Hassam character shot M in the first place. Thanks to RebaForever15 for the inspiration behind this;or rather for Avec l'amor de Paris, without which I would never have discovered Connie James and her back story, which triggered this.**

* * *

"Where the hell are you going?" James hadn't noticed that M was following him out the door until she had complained about him accidentally shutting her foot in it.

"MI6," she said flatly, her blood boiling a little at this remark. About a month stuck inside had driven her pretty near demented, so James had unfortunately ended up on the recieving end of her temper several times. "Tanner called me. They've looked into who caused this; they think they've found our culprit, or rather more about him, and they've got photos and stuff that I need to see."

"Okay, but if you're going to bite my head off for every single little remark I make then you're walking."

* * *

"We used face-matching software to click CCTV images to a face via social network pages et cetera and we reckon we have our guy," Q, M and Tanner all leaned over the young Quartermaster's laptop as the twenty-something supernerd surfed through a load of old files. It was strangely comforting, in a way, to be back in MI6 for M, and this familiar enviroment was making her feel in a sense reborn. However, the taboo subject of the assassination attempt that she had near lost her life in being all that was talked aabout, she was rather far from at ease. "Does the name Hassam Bin Hassam mean anything to you?"

M gulped, this name striking several chords in her memory. "Well, in Arab names, 'Bin' means 'son of'. This could be completely unconnected, but if I remember correctly, a certain mission in Afghanistan went painfully wrong when I was about thirty-nine, the cause of which was a man named Fahim Hassam. The mission was to start with destroying a weapons cartel, but it got a lot more sinister and turned out to be the preliminary stages of 911 - I always did kind of blame myself for that.  
"This Fahim character; he was shot by my partner, Tiago Rodriguez, years ago when we were on our first mission together. He died instantly, but not before he had stolen and destroyed most of our equipment, nearly blown our cover, gotten ahold of me, cut my hair and raped me about six times in the space of an hour because we perhaps weren't as discreet as we should have been and he worked out that we'd in a sense been stalking him and were probably agents of some description." M had to stop there. The memory tore at her insides; it wasn't something easy to forget, especially not the aftermath, and the fact that her shoulder kept siezing up wasn't helpful. Once she had recomposed herself, she continued.  
"That isn't where it ends, though. I - I ended up pregnant by him, and decided that I had to abort. It completely went against every single moral principle that I held close to my heart, but it was that or have my rapist's child. I suppose that this Bin Hassam must have still been bitter about the murder of his father, and since Rodriguez died years ago-" M couldn't help but sigh at the fond, rose-tinted memory of her former favourite agent. "He must have decided to take it out on me instead. It's that or he wanted back at me for killing his father's baby. And I suppose that in its own right, the baby thing was wrong, but what other choice was there? If I sound as if I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm not, I swear."

"M, you don't," Tanner gave her a slight smile as she stared at the floor, trying to obscure her tears.

"I know, but to know that this was my fault in the first place is just a bit..."

"M, shit happens. You should know that by now. But it's over and done with, so unless he has a twin sister or something, it's over for good," Q put his arm around M's shoulder, M quivering at his touch and sighing as the meaning of his words penetrated her.

"You're right, you're right. The past's in the past for good reason. But if he actually does have a sister, I may actually shoot myself."

TO BE CONTINUED...


End file.
